Reflecting on 2024

Its that time of year many of us have a bit more time and we sit back and reflect on our year just closing before we start to look ahead to the year that is to come. So here are the thoughts of a few of us on how 2024 has been for us in hobby land.

Martin

2024 has been one of my quieter years of hobby though that’s not to say I haven’t done much. Being solely a Flames of War player has limited the new material but has allowed me to go back and develop one or two projects I started but never progressed, most notably it has been my D-Day beach defenders of Infantrie Division 716 that have taken up most of my hobby time. This was a major project which saw me build and complete my Beach Defender Grenadier Force with all it’s accompanying captured artillery guns, bunker defence points and machine gun nests. This came to just over 200 points and took me nearly 6 months to do. Luckily it was ready for the inaugural Shoot & Scoot patrons day, hosted by the Shoot & Scoot team with more than a little help from Mike, at his local village hall in Chailey and supported by the guys from Frontline Terrain who drove the length of Britain to join with patrons from near and afar for a fantastic day of D-Day themed gaming on June 8th to celebrate the 80th Anniversary. Talking of D-Day, Battlefront gave us an excellent compilation book and brought out 4 limited edition collectors armies which I’m glad must have sold well, based on the number I’ve seen on the various social forums. I acquired the distinctive 21st Panzer Division set for a future project to accompany my 716 ID. We subsequently saw this repeated for the 80th anniversaries of Operation Market Garden and The Battle of the Bulge but without the compilation book this time. I’m a bit sad on that but can see why they didn’t go that way for these. In total I’ve acquired 5 new Forces – so enough for a good few years of hobby activity!

In the first part of 2024 we also saw the release of a completely new game “Clash of Steel” themed on Operation Unthinkable with 2 starter sets British vs German and USA vs Soviet Union, this mixed models from the FOW range with some theoretical tanks from the “World of Tanks” game and gave us a first look at the soon-to-be release Late War Leviathans FOW expansion, with a pdf set of Tank Formation lists, to use the new miniatures in Late War Flames of War. It took me quite a while to actually play a game but, now I have, I really enjoy it the simplified nature of CoS; it makes it a quick to play game compared to FOW. I wish there was some other way than the starter set to get the cards, I’m not convinced I need all the game rules and support material every time there is a release. Collecting a single nation’s force is also a bit tricky, but that’s what friends are for. We have also had the 2nd wave moving the CoS timeline forward into the 1950’s and the 60’s are coming to join us up with the Team Yankee WW3 time line.

Lastly for FoW we saw the release of Late War Leviathans as a stand-alone book and a fully fleshed out FOW expansion, with Tanks, Guns and Infantry for the alternative post 1944 timeline. Now this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, me included, but it brought some nice new models which will undoubtably slot into future historically based releases for the post World War Two period and made sense from a commercial perspective for Battlefront, many of these models were necessary for the World of Tanks tie up and feature in Clash of Steel.

Gaming wise it’s been a quiet year I’ve not played much overall, I managed a 2nd place at Table Top Republic’s, Echo’s of Alamein, Mid War event where Fez finally managed to beat me at a tournament and a mid-field result at the Shoot & Scoot run D-Day themed Warfare bringing my recent run of success there to an end. Well, that’s it from me. Have a safe and happy festive season and see you in 2025.

Mark

To me 2024 has felt like a quiet FOW year where I haven’t really done as much as usual. However, on looking back on my phone I have realised that a lot of things have added up and it’s only really the last 3 months when I have suffered a bit of FOW fatigue.

The year started with completion of my 100pt No Reserve Berlin list complete with 4 x railway guns. Above was them gradually obliterating some pesky Soviet Churchills at Corrivarly. I managed 4th, winning 3 games, and the full details are here.

From there, I started to paint up the 21st Panzer Division boxed set. This was one of the first of many set BF have dropped this year, finally giving people what they want! Classic Resin and Metal sets in a box with some added tokens, dice and the beautiful objective markers. They were a joy to paint, although they have not seen the table yet.

Later in the year I headed over to the re-invigorated Scottish Nationals which was a fantastic event and gave me a chance to practice for the ETC with my aggressive Sherman Horde army. It did pretty well, managing 3rd and some confidence for my trip to Poland.

ETC was as fun as ever and my Shermans got a respectable 4 wins although Team England has some soul searching and replanning after a lower than expected performance. We shall see if we bounce back next year in Austria.

Having got the idea from the guys at 3colourspainted I made this collage of some odd items I painted this year. I have been really hitting the objective markers, gathering rare ones from Ebay and events. I also paint stripped the Panther objective and troop of 3 and repainted them. It really showed how you can rescue old models.

Come September, I ran UK Nationals again. We got so many players that we had to expand twice and still sold out. I think we sold 44 tickets in the end, and it was great to see so many new faces as well as the regular ‘gang’. I went for a completely infantry and gun based army, using the blocking platoons from Bagration and the Berlin Battle Group to once again have no reserves. Once I again I ended up (joint) 4th which was another respectable outing for an odd ball force.

Following the Nationals I have really not done a lot of FOW. I already have the forces from the new Bastogne sets and the combination of 3 kids, and a promotion, are restricting my chances to get gaming weekends away. I have also been having a bit of a palette cleanse with some Kill Team.

I hope with the release of the Pacific in the New Year plus Early War in the Summer, my excitement will pick back up along with my painting output. I have never painted Japanese before and my EW collection is very small. If I could choose 1 bit of great news for 2025 it would be Dynamic Points for Late War. The success for MW really needs to be translated over, so hopefully our BF overlords will hear the cry.

Lee

2024 started off down under as I raced to get the ANZAC ready for some TY tournaments at High Wycombe’s “Tabletop Republic”.

As it was, delays in the arrival of the models meant they missed the first tournament and the T-80 got rolled out instead, but the LAV squadron did make the second tournament. Whilst the T-80 got smashed by a hail of Milan 2 – winning only one of the three games, the Aussies managed a respectable two wins out of three and a best painted award.

We visited TTR again for a mid war tournament, which saw my Honey Stuarts enter the field for the first time in a long time. They again secured two wins out of three, and I added another “best painted” plus a “third place” in the tournament itself. Not bad!

The final tournament of the year was Warfare 2024. Eddie had set up a D-Day themed five-game tournament, with players encouraged to bring axis and allied forces to maximise red vs blue games. I was lucky that my Churchills saw all five games. The first day went very well with two out of three wins, the second game timing out as I just couldn’t kill all the bloody German armoured cars sitting on the objective. The last game of the day saw me face Martin where I got lucky with mission, table and morale checks (go reluctant French resistance!) to finally beat him in a game! Sadly, the second day saw me on the two urban tables where the wide boulevards and low ruins left me prey to 88s (Roy seemed to pull off most of the “Hit on 7s” he attempted!), leaving me in mid-table at the end. The competition for best painted was very stiff, and it fell to Szymon and his excellent US force.

Elsewhere in the hobby, I gave Clash of Steel a go. The underlying adjustments to the Flames of War engine worked nicely enough, and I still mean to try it again but trying it with Six Day War FoaN forces or Mid-War tanks.

In June, Shoot and Scoot podcast held its first patron wargaming day with the “Big(gest) Barn Splash” held. We had 20+ players fighting it out on a huge D-Day beach landing table courtesy of Mike’s barn set-up (albeit ported to the local village hall).

I was also given two days to paint a squadron of DD tanks which, thanks to an all-night effort, was achieved!

The painting table has been busy with Team Yankee’s new plastics leading to a Soviet Rifle Company and a USMC Rifle Company being added and removed from the to-do list (well, the USMC is heading to completion as I write).

I also found time to get some Battletech painted up, although I’m still waiting for my bloody kickstarter to arrive!

All in all, it’s been a good year of hobby. Looking to 2025, Early War is long overdue, and I’m looking forward to returning to my half done 3RTR in Calais force with its rubbish A9, A10 and A13 cruisers. I’m hoping there is more TY than just the IDF book as it’s been far too quiet in that range and BF need to show it some love. I’m also hoping some sort of Italy theatre book for LW WW2 will finally turn up. We shall see!

Soren

Sitting down thinking of 2024, it feels like I didn’t do too much Flames of War stuff, but when scrolling through the posts on Burning Bridges I can see that it has been quite a busy year. With Polar Bear 7 being held in February I used the first part of 2024 making a Berlin table for the event. I had a blast making it as I always find it a challenge to make terrain and make it look.

After Polar Bear 7, focus shifted to “Østerskov”. It’s the biggest yearly event in Denmark with 20-30 players playing a historical event. What makes it really special is that it is held at a boarding school with food and housing included. This means the whole setup around the game can be made different and interesting. It was along time goal to go and I quickly painted up a Soviet T34 force for the event.

The T34’s turned out to be tons of fun to play even if they weren’t very good. I not only got to have fun but also won best painted. The fun games at Østerskov made me decide to take them to ETC.

Before the ETC in August I went to Portugal on holiday and was so lucky to in some games with the local players. I had lots of fun and also got to play against Pedro’s magnificently painted army that went on the win Best Painted out of the 120 Armies at ETC.

In August it was ETC time. As team Iceland we have no ambitions to win and with the T34 vanilla army I know I would have an army no one else would take as they struggle to do the most simple tasks with their AT9 overworked gun. I decided in the last minute to drop the IS-85 to take more T34/85’s which turned out to be a mistake. But I had some fun and challenging games at the ETC and Team Iceland won Most Sporting Team for the second time out of 2 possible so that made me proud to be able to play with guys that the other teams also enjoy playing with. We also had a very good time outside the gaming halls with a lot of other teams and especially Team USA that stayed at the same hotel and are not afraid to party all night and still manage to win the whole thing.

In the autumn I organised a mini Stalingrad campaign for our local community so we could get back to MW and also have some games with the City Fighting rules that makes the game a whole other experience.

The last experience of the year was a trip to Sweden to play in the Swedish Nationals together with “The Bunnitiers”. The Swedish Flames of War scene is on the raise and had 28 players attending. We managed to do a little sightseeing in Halmstad and had some good games in downtown Halmstad. I had painted up a Soviets Cossack army for the event and got Best Painted but only managed 16th place after some horrible play by myself.

Among this I also managed to make a map of all Battlefronts campaigns and scenarios so players quickly and easily can find a historical game to play that has their interest and I started a youtube channels with my friend Morten to do interviews with players from the whole world to hear how FOW is played elsewhere.

Richard

I think I may have played more Flames of War in 2024 than in any year since the end of version 3.

It started in February when I flew to Reykjavik to play in the bi-annual Polar Bear tournament. I decided I’d take something a bit different, but in keeping with my usual Historic builds. So i dusted off my British Para’s, did a bit of research on 6th Airborne Reconnaissance Regiment after the Rhine Crossing, and so took a jeep formation, parachute infantry formation, supported by 3 Churchills and a pair of Typhoons. Nobody was as surprised as I was when it came in second. It’s mostly about friends with me so it was good to catch up with old friends, both from Iceland and further afield, and to get a few different games in too. Including a refight of the Battle of Coronel (1914) with Jökull, and catch up with the best hot dog stand in the world.

Prior to a trip to Poland for the ETC there were a couple of trips down to Mark’s for some training alongside Mark and fellow Team England stalwart Graham Wilmott, three enjoyable test games which were fun, if a bit frustrating for Mark, who did roll a lot of 1s at the wrong time.

Next up was the ETC, playing as part of Team Iceland. I tweaked my old v3 La Nueve (Spanish Republicans in French service) list which I has used in the Madrid competition last December. We had a team plan to try and get wins for the three team members who had not won an ETC game, and so I was took the defence stance for 5 out of the 6 games. I had 6 really good games, avoided defeat in all of them, but only managed to convert one into a win. We had a number of great nights out, plus three of us had a sobering trip to Oświęcim on the thursday before the tournament. For the second time in our two appearances at the ETC Team Iceland took the best sporting prize, which for all of the team was a vert pleasing outcome. Søren has already posted up a load of great photos from our visit to Poland, so i’ll just add one.

As the year started to come to an end I had the pleasure of two trips to Scandinavia. First up in November I went to visit my friend Morten in Aarhus, Denmark to take part in the historical gaming event KlaesKon. This year the guys had decided to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Operation Market Garden. Morten asked me to take Gough’s Jeeps and the Para Engineers, and over the weekend, despite the free flowing beer, I managed to win all my games and take the “Best Airborne Player” plaque. It’s a brilliant, non competitive event, and i even got to play a doubles game alongside my old friend Kristian. Jens, Morten and Klaes really do deserve a lot of kudos for running this event.

Three weeks after I’d flown home from Copenhagen I was back, aiming to meet up with Morten and Søren (my Bunniteer friends) for a trip over the Øresund Bridge (of Nordic Noir fame) to take part in the Swedish Nationals. As Søren had decided to take Cossacks, i decided to take Romanian cavalry, and Ludwig from Finland joined in the cavalry theme too, with Hungarian Hussars but painted to represent Finnish Dragoons. It was a great tournament and fantastic to meet up with the Swedish community which is enjoying a renaissance. Again I was quite surprised to end up fourth with my historic but non meta list. (Cavalry , plus a ragtag of Romanian light tanks to represent the cannabalised state of the Romanian armoured force, with a unit of IS2s from our generous Soviet “allies”). The highlight of the tournament was twice winning games by assaulting onto the objective with Renault 35s :-). Halmstad is a great town and we also caught up with our Finnish friends and had our usual great weekend away. Morten and Søren have covered the event on their new YouTube channel.

Outside of Flames of War, my work painting up my WW1 and WW2 fleets continues and I’ve started building some 28mm forces for the Pikeman’s Lament rule set, largely because I wanted to move back into playing some toy soldiers which wasn’t tournament based, but also because I have committed to run a demo game of the Battle of Inverkeithing for the re-opening of their Old Town Hall in 2025.

Am really looking forward to the release of Early War, which has always been my favourite of the three periods, hopefully there won’t be any further delays. Whilst I should be ok for Early War armies, (though am short of Poles !!) I have a new project to work on which my wife provide the models for at Xmas, I really should complete my Swedes and Finns for Team Yankee (mostly infantry to complete) , and a few old boxes and prizes from competitions i really should build. I will try and make Eyes and Ears a more regular occurrence this year, though conscious of Burning Bridges, excellent new vlog and not wanting to step on friends toes, and lastly the travelling group of friends from across the roof of Europe is already planning it’s next away missions !!

Well that’s some our 2024 activity, thanks for following along with us and we hope to hear from you again here on the blog, the podcast, or even through the various video streams in 2025. Enjoy seeing in the New Year! We’ll be back in early January.